This country brief is part of an eleven-part series exploring the landscape of B2C e-commerce marketplaces in various East Asian economies. This series offers in-depth insights into the traffic trends for active e-commerce websites, national established and emerging key players, main characteristics of the marketplaces, ease of online selling, the degree of specialization in terms of products as well as the products characteristics.
For more project information visit https://www.unescap.org/projects/b2c
The Philippines shows a low internet penetration rate (56%) and a moderate proportion of its population purchases goods online (41%). In addition, the density of B2C marketplaces is particularly low with a total of 163 B2C marketplaces for a population of 115.6 million (7.5% of the total traffic in the region studied).
Over the period 2019-2022, traffic on the 163 B2C marketplaces has grown significantly, rising from 960 million visits to 1.7 billion visits. Among them, classified sites account for the largest proportion of marketplaces (51.5%) but online shopping malls capture most of the traffic (85.2%).
The e-commerce market in the Philippines is dominated by international companies (77%), including first and foremost the United States (29%). Of the total 163 marketplaces, there is an important geographical diversity given the 23 other countries with companies holding B2C marketplaces.
The e-commerce market is highly concentrated with the Top 10 websites capturing 92.8% of the total traffic. This Top 10 is led by online shopping malls, 5 in total, of which two Singaporean companies (Shopee and Lazada) account for 75.4% of the total traffic. Only one company from the Philippines appears in 6th position with 1.7% of the total traffic.
Regarding the ease of selling on these B2C marketplaces, only 43% of them allow foreign sellers to operate and 64% offer open registration to online sellers. Only 39% of these marketplaces are fully transactional and, as a corollary, 42% require trading fees to sell online.
The Philippines has a larger proportion of generic B2C marketplaces (62%) compared to specialized marketplaces (38%). Among the 62 specialized marketplaces, 29% specialize in fashion, accessories, and shoes (capturing 18% of the traffic) and 29% in automotive parts (51.5% of the traffic). The traffic dynamics also show that consumer preferences lean towards groceries (23% of the traffic).